1. Field of Invention
The techniques described herein are directed generally to the field of performing semantic search of content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that store a vast array of information. The World Wide Web (“WWW”) is an information sharing model built on top of the Internet, in which a system of interlinked hypertext documents are accessed using particular protocols (i.e., the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and its variants).
Because of the enormous volume of information available via the WWW and the Internet, and because the available information is distributed across an enormous number of independently owned and operated networks and servers, locating desired content on the WWW and the Internet presents challenges.
Search engines have been developed to aid users in locating desired content on the Internet. A search engine is a computer program that receives a search query from a user (e.g., in the form of a set of keywords) indicative of content desired by the user, and returns information and/or hyperlinks to information that the search engine determines to be relevant to the user's search query.
Search engines typically work by retrieving a large number of WWW web pages and/or other content using a computer program called a WebCrawler that browses the WWW in an automated fashion (e.g., following every hyperlink that it comes across in each web page that it browses). The retrieved web pages and/or content are analyzed and information about the web pages or content is stored in an index. When a user issues a search query to the search engine, the search engine uses the index to identify the web pages and/or content that it determines to best match the user's search query and returns a list of results with the best-matching web pages and/or content. Frequently, this list is in the form of one or more web pages that include a set of hyperlinks to the web pages and/or content determined to best match the user's query.